No single soldier has ever endured, in sum, what Mary Roach subjects her readers to in Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (Norton, 285 pp., *** out of four stars).

Roach is a tenacious investigative journalist with an appetite for the unappetizing; the best-selling bard of the single-word title. (Gulp, Bonk, Spook and Stiff were her previous efforts about, respectively, the alimentary canal, science and sex, the afterlife, and cadavers.)

Though her books are all relatively brief enterprises, they can feel bottomless in their gross-out depths. Yet, Roach is rarely gratuitously creepy. Her curiosity about the inner workings of things that most of us would rather not inspect too closely often yields revelations and, occasionally, even catharsis. In this regard, Grunt ranks high in the Roach repertoire.

The book is a relentless exploration of the manifold physical misfortunes suffered by members of the armed forces in action, and the efforts by scientists to blunt them. The subtitle is something of a misnomer; Grunt is much more about the science of Americans at war today than anything more far-reaching. Which lends it greater power and immediacy, albeit sporadically.

At its best — which is to say, for roughly the book’s first half — Grunt explores the seemingly mundane particulars of how uniform fabrics are chosen and tested (particularly for their flammability), how desert heat is handled, and how vehicles are built to endure the worst that our terrorist wars can throw at them. Roach embeds herself in myriad obscure and unsung military research laboratories and think tanks. The minutiae of her findings accrue in a discomforting way, revealing the many desperate experiments undertaken to minimize the murderousness of IEDs (Improvised Roadside Explosives) or, failing that, to create the means for reattaching a soldier’s vitals, right down to his penis, after an IED has been detonated.

Mary Roach, author of the book ‘Grunt’(Photo: Jen Siska)

Roach’s approach is always clinical. At times, it is also glib. Yet, an insidiously intimate portrait emerges of the appalling aftermath for soldiers who survive an IED blast. Roach is not a “you are there” gore-meister. Rather, by reflection and deflection she lays bare the horrors that these doctors and research scientists of the Pentagon bureaucracy grapple with, striving to protect or heal servicemen and women. In doing so, she brings home the inestimable sacrifices these soldiers have made. You get it, and “it” almost becomes too much to contemplate.

Then, just like that, Roach moves on. The remaining chapters tackle diarrhea, maggots and flies (which do retain relevance to our Middle Eastern military presence), stink bombs, shark repellent and submarine sinkings (which do not). The methodology is the same. So is the tone. Many fascinating facts are gleaned and unexamined histories are revealed. But the context of immediacy is diminished. And the book very much bogs down.

In her final chapter, on the lessons of autopsies for the living, Roach returns to the here and now via corpses from Afghanistan. The perspective restores Grunt’s initial power, if only for a handful of final pages. The payoff, however, is substantial. As Roach writes, “I guess war is like that. A thousand points of light, as they say. Only when you step back and view the sum, only then are you able to grasp the worth.”

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Barry Singer is the author of Churchill Style: The Art of Being Winston Churchill.